It's been - better. After weeks of seclusion, withdrawal, Gwenaëlle's been edging back to a more familiar schedule, easier to find, easier to talk to, less likely to find an excuse to leave when caught walking. She's clawed her way back to normalcy, buried the ache, told herself that she'll learn to live with it. Has been learning.

The wound is still new, though, and the reaction - violent in a way that couldn't have been expected, rising suddenly, not aggressive but unable to be still, hands clutching her elbows, pacing like a trapped animal. Her blood. That Wren has brushed - slammed into - a nerve she didn't know was there is clear, it's hard to miss the way she hadn't really reacted to it will take your life, like that would be so terrible, of course, like her life would be such a loss--

But she can still feel Guenievre's heartbeat slowing under her hands, sometimes. She still wakes cold and stares blankly at the ceiling as she remembers why there isn't anyone sleeping next to her.

"I hope it takes more," she says, unexpectedly savage where she looked for a moment like she might weep. Two mothers down and the only parent she has left is at fault, it's his fault--